They say "a picture is worth a thousand words," but a picture of people holding hands somehow feels like it's worth a great deal more. It's something about our species' simultaneous desperation for intimacy and fear of it, and handholding perfectly captures that strange paradox in that it can signify anything from tentative connection to an understanding of a great, mutual love. In short, it's our simplest action of affection and, in some ways, our most complex.

Magnum Photos is a photographic cooperative of great diversity and distinction owned by its photographer members. With powerful individual vision, Magnum photographers chronicle the world and interpret its peoples, events, issues and personalities.